A while back, I started using visual cues to help my preschooler stay organized. I taped pictures of different clothing items onto his dresser drawers so he could see where everything belonged. The change was almost immediate: He became more willing to get dressed, put away laundry, and take ownership of his things. I expanded the idea to toy bins, and it worked just as well.
I am using one round basket as a picture hanging basket! I love to be efficient with small frequent tasks so this is where I'm keeping all the little supplies I need to hang a plate or frame: it'll hold things like sticky tack, measuring tape, hooks and nails, and soon I'll add a new stack of the plate hangers i love and a small leveler and a new small hammer to replace ones I lost :).
The space couldn't be more than 500 square feet, yet it feels like something out of a design magazine. Meanwhile, I know people with houses three times the size that somehow feel cheap despite the hefty mortgage. It got me thinking about what really makes a space feel luxurious. After years of observing homes that punch above their weight class financially, I've noticed certain patterns. The truth is that creating an expensive-feeling home has surprisingly little to do with actual expense.
The best products are the ones that solve everyday problems, like being able to see into your blind spot when driving, or decluttering that mess of cables on your desk. So if you're looking for cool stuff that's actually useful? You've come to the right place, as all the life-improving things you'll find below are not only practical, but each one will set you back less than the cost of dinner out.
What I haven't mastered yet, though, is swapping out and organizing seasonal clothing. Now that we're in the winter months, all our wintertime accessories have become a mess around the home. Gloves and hats, for instance, might be tucked into storage bins, stuffed into kids' drawers, tossed into the coat closet, or forgotten entirely inside jacket pockets. That's not ideal - especially on dark, frigid school mornings when everyone suddenly needs a hat right now.
One of my favorite parts of writing House Tours for Apartment Therapy is getting to explore beautiful, unique interiors around the world - and discovering all the deeply personal and wildly imaginative ways people make a space their own. And no one is quite as creative as a big family trying to make a small home work for everyone who shares the space.
Whether you own or rent, there's probably been at least one point in time where you wished you had more storage. One efficient way to make use of your smaller-than-desired storage space is by investing in vertical storage. You can get tall shelves or stackable boxes, but don't overlook your ceiling. There's a whole world of storage waiting for you up there, and all you need to access it is a curtain rod.
When it's 365 days until next Christmas and you're pondering all the work you've put into getting your home holiday ready-from Christmas lights gracing the front of the house to the Christmas tree bedecked with ornaments to your greenery, garlands, wreaths, and holiday knickknacks placed in all their old spots-the thought of finding to right time to break out the storage boxes can be a little daunting (and hardly in the spirit of the hap-happiest time of the year).
If you've been wanting to upgrade your home but have been putting it off because you're worried about it costing too much, you've come to the right place. The Inverse shopping team has found inexpensive, hidden gem products that'll help update your home. In fact, everything on this list is under $30. We've found things to help you organize clutter, spruce up any room, and save space - all while making it look like an interior designer stepped in to help.
I'm convinced my aunt could open a small museum with the amount of family photos and keepsakes she's accumulated over the years. She and my uncle have chronicled every get-together for as long as I can remember. While a lot of it is digitally stored on their home computer, the bulk of it is physical media passed down from my grandparents: my grandmother's favorite bossanova records,
Sometimes, it's important to look at things from different points of view - and that includes your furniture. Rearranging your bedroom or any other room in your home may feel like completing a life-sized jigsaw puzzle, but the endeavor can empower you to actively problem solve and assess the pieces in your home like no other. What may seem like a chore can breathe new life into your space.
The LEGO Stackable Storage Brick is a box with a lid meant for storage, but it's shaped like a giant LEGO brick. It's simple, fun, and functional! It retails for $21.98 and measures a little more than 1 1/2 feet wide, 9 inches deep, and 7 inches tall. It comes in eight different colors, but on the Sam's Club website every color but light pink and red is sold out.
A Sproos handheld showerhead to upgrade the look and functionality of your shower, but frankly, we're just here for great water pressure and funky color options to liven up the rental space and give you another ~more flexible way~ to hose down your kiddo. A five-tier over-the-door organizer you'll name "the catchall" (AS YOU SHOULD) because no matter how organized your space, something always defies your carefully curated bins and shelves, and that's where this baby comes in handy.
The other day, I was walking around the city when I spotted a tiered set of serving bowls in a store. I'm not a big foodie, so I'd never really noticed them in restaurants or on dinner tables before, but this time, something clicked. Instead of imagining them filled with dips and snacks, all I saw was storage potential (similar to how I first saw double-duty potential in this kitchen drawer organizer and this hose holder).
My husband and I bought a builder-grade home in 2009, and since then we've made many, many changes to it. But one of the features simply evaded our efforts through all these years: the sliding closet doors. The most annoying of these were in my office. They made it very difficult to access the storage space, as that closet is small and has a cabinet next to it that limits movement even further.
